Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

Biiiiiiiiig riiiiiiiiiig!!!

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truckasaurus!

lovely. time to drive up and down the beachfront with the windows open blasting some Winger.

I wanna drive a Dodge Ram now, those things are FUCKIN' HUGE!!!

anyhoo. electric cars - they're great and everyone should think about getting one.

So much this.

Yesterday: pick up kids and kids' friend from school for an impromptu visit to Tate Britain.

Journey time from Herne Hill to Tate, 20 mins.

Cost of electricity £0.16
Cost of parking for 3 hours literally outside Tate Britain: £0.42.

Total CO2 emitted onto London roads: 0kg

What about all the particulates???

but... a journey that could easily have been replicated on public transport without contributing to school run or inner-city traffic. Shift to electric cars = good; long term shift away from car use = better.

What about all the particulates???

What particulates? Brake dust?

a journey that could easily have been replicated on public transport without contributing to school run or inner-city traffic.

England game meant no traffic.

School run has been massively helped by Safer Streets scheme on Lowden Rd, following a pilot with Lambeth that I personally initiated.

But yes, I agree with you to a certain extent.

Question, why is "traffic" of an electric car carrying 4 people bad?

In traffic terms it would be better if u all stayed in? :)

What particulates? Brake dust?

And tyre rubber IIRC- big source of micro plastic waste as it’s washed into drains. I’d think that regenerative braking would lead to an electric car producing far less brake dust than a conventional car, Porsche are concerned about the brake discs going very rusty for this reason on the Taycan.

The extent being up to the point at which it requires a change of personal behaviour?

An electric car carrying four people is the optimum use of the vehicle, but four people travelling through a city not using a car is 'better' (whatever that means).

Aware I'm coming across as a crazy anti-car type, just thought I'd push some buttons. Now I'm semi-rural I'm using the car for everything and I hate it.

because a close pass in Tesla and a close pass in Nissan Qashqai on Layhams is equally dangerous

to simplify, less cars (of any kind) = safer active travel for all

also particulates

I expect better Mashton, 4/10

fewer

And 2 of your volvos might be same as a wheelbase of a bus that can carry way more passengers so if there are two mashtons driving, around 30 people get delayed due to added congestion.

Treat driving like meat eating.

Apparently the cause of brake pad change on Tesla is age out (ie outside of manufacturer lifetime spec) rather than wear out.

I use the brake pedal on my Model 3 to start the car / engage a gear and maybe two or three times on and average 50 mile drive.

Treat driving like meat eating.

7 days a week with HP sauce?

only if you are hungover

mashton make "this car killed the fixie" stickers

better' (whatever that means).

It's precisely this definition that I am intrigued by.

volvos

Fuck you

they're great and everyone should think about getting one

Am i massively overestimating the cost of an electric car ownership? To me they're still an out of reach proposition but tbf that would be true of any new/newish car.

I do a 10-20 mile trip most Sundays's with the dog and do a small handful of 3-400 mile trips during the year so fuel costs aren't really an issue. My car has massive loading capacity which is needed for the long trips so a small car wouldn't make sense for me. I have an idea of what it costs me to have my car sitting outside the house doing fuck all (insurance/tax/MOT/service items), ULEZ aside is it just the tax and occasional fuel costs i'd be saving on if i could go electric?

Well if less space and money was dedicated to car transit and car parking you could have had a safe cycling infrastructure that would have allowed you and the children to ride the 3 miles to the museum, and/or use multi-modal friendly public transport.

I would have taken the car too, but another way is possible.

It’s a many vs few thing really isn’t it? Your unnecessary car trip (potentially) takes road space away from other more efficient (people per hour) means of transport, could deter more vulnerable road users from making sustainable transport choices, and then parking it takes public realm away from uses more beneficial to the general populace. Four people travelled smoothly in to the Tate but the x hundred Coin Street community residents are denied increased green space, wider pavements and car-free areas to frolic.

When wandering around town, do you ever pause, inhale deeply, survey the sights and think ‘mmmm yes, this beautiful pocket of the city would definitely be improved by a few more cars in the way’?

A majority of city users don’t drive. A majority of city users’ daily experiences in the city would be improved if they didn’t have to interact with cars/road traffic. A minority of city users have decided that using their box to travel around in increased personal convenience on often unnecessary journeys is more important than the wellbeing of this majority. Emissions is currently a large, but not complete, part of it; going electric doesn’t absolve you of having a disproportionately negative effect on the environment (infrastructure allocation, safety) of a majority of those around you,

…is a way of answering that question. I’m not as evangelical as that answer suggests, and it’s not a fight I can have without being massively hypocritical. But every time I jump in the car and drive somewhere, all of this is something I internalise. @amey spouts the talking points better than I could, but even he has succumbed to the wonders of car ownership now.

E: @Lolo put it far more succinctly in the ten minutes it took to tease that out of my brain.

Question, why is "traffic" of an electric car carrying 4 people bad?

In a city the whole lot grinds to a halt if more than a tiny tiny percentage of people decide to travel by car. And that's with absolutely heroic efforts to keep traffic moving - dedicating basically all of our prime outdoor space to moving or parking cars, making pedestrians wait forever at crossings, accepting X pedestrians/cyclists will be maimed or killed each day, etc.

So car use in a city is an incredibly finite resource and using it when you could easily use something else is kinda selfish.

(admittedly the real problem isn't one off journeys but people making journeys like yours all day and every day and then whinging constantly about traffic and bike lanes and parking)